Heretofore printed labels which were placed on cylindrical glass containers were made from paper, foil and plastic. The paper labels are most commonly varnished, clay coated fiber paper stock. When such paper labels are removed by prior art label stripping machines of the type set forth in a commonly held U.S. Pat. No. 4,122,734 the label was spirally cut and removed creating large amounts of dust and particulate which clogged the machine and affected its operability as well as created a pollution hazard. Even though plastic and foil labels do not create clay dust, they still produce a large amount of particulate which also produces problems for cleanliness of the machine and its environment.
Additionally, the razor blades used in such label stripper machines is known to produce a spiral strip when cutting and stripping a label from a container. Not only was such label not cleanly removed but some label adhesive redeposited itself on different parts of the label stripper apparatus including the container which was being stripped. Thus, the prior art label strippers, while accomplishing the task of removing different types of adhesive backed labels, generated a post-cleaning operation to remove adhesive particles and parts of adhesive labels from the container as well as unremoved adhesive from the container.
Thus, heretofore, the spiral stripping motion of paper labels leaves a substantial adhesive residue on the bottles. Not only is there some adhesive left on the bottles but there is adhesive on the particulate that becomes statically charged and reattaches itself not only to the bottles but to the machinery which requires additional cleaning of the machine and requires post-stripping cleaning of the bottles.
Commonly held U.S. Pat. No. 5,152,865, issued to Richard Hurst, teaches an apparatus and method of removing an adhesive backed label from a cylindrical container. Such an apparatus and system works well for its intended purposes, however, improvements have been developed that (a) improve the time required to remove a label (i.e. faster); (b) provide improved safety; (c) provide a self-cleaning features; and (b) that better remove labels from cylindrical containers that may have more than one label as well as different sections having different diameters.